What we’re about
This is a group for people who create and consume philosophy. Members will have the opportunity to read and discuss each others' work, as well as texts from pre-established philosophers. Each meeting will be partially structured, with chosen topics/texts from a rotating member; and partially un-structured, with free-form discussion.
(Please note this is an in person event: An online one is posted here.) One of the more interesting spots where philosophy intersects with the preoccupations of citizens in modern Western democracies can be found in questions concerning the function and dysfunction of universities and colleges.
As institutions, these places have a long history and have served and continue to serve a dazzling variety of functions. In the 20th century, they have become gigantic institutions, sometimes with endowments the size of the GDP of small nations. And because of this size and because of the variety of functions they have served, often involving a number of sometimes apparently contradicting interests, and because they are also incubators of intellectual culture, the question what a university should be Is a matter of interest to both any engaged citizen and to the philosophical particularly, whose job lies intimately close to the interpretation of the conflicted ideals of a culture and it's institutions.
To clarify our thinking about these matters, it is helpful to consider a critical evaluation of the university system that should come from a coherent and markedly distinct point of view and that should illuminate the historical processes that the university is subject to. With these objectives in mind, we might do well to consider Thorstein Veblen's The Higher Learning in America, a remarkable critique of the University system at a time when it was just starting to take on its modern features.
An institutional economist famous for work on conspicuous consumption and waste, Veblen’s largely pessimistic view of these modern developments stems from a peculiar and idiosyncratic conception of the function of universities. For Veblen, a university is first and foremost an institution dedicated to research and study, a scientific institution. As such, it is not primarily a place for education, vocational training, or cultural refinement. Rather, it is as he says, a seminary of higher learning dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Therefore, Veblen’s critique of the University will not be related to whether it provides a well-rounded education, whether it provides practical skills, makes good citizens, or good people. It will be whether it exists in a way that supports the needs of scholarly communities.
Veblen proceeds to make an argument that at the beginning of the 20th century, in the pursuit of public notoriety, large cash flows and traffic, and prestige, the needs of scholarly communities were largely pushed to the side in the pursuit of power, prestige, and money.
The structural explanation for this lies in the fact that the board of directors of universities increasingly consists not of scholars autonomously governing a community of scholars, but rather of businessmen running universities according to their own instincts of what makes a good business. As Veblen puts it, we see in this the old Platonic folly in reverse: instead of the philosopher governing men of affairs and directing practical affairs, the men of practical affairs are governing the philosophers and directing them in their work.
The results of these business instincts is that almost everything gets the attention of University administration except the needs of actual scholarship and impartial pursuit of truth. The primary focus of the University becomes attracting students as customers, and attracting donors as sources of cash, and so an increasing amount of the university's time is spent on amenities, architecture, and marketing. Because a large student body cannot be expected to actually be invested in scholarship, the university has to invent a systematized, coercive, and rigidly standardized and planned out course of instruction, so as to get as many people through the system as possible who do not have an interest in the pursuit of knowledge.
In this way, Veblen's profoundly narrow scholarly focus provides an interesting window on more general human problems at a time when the fate of the universities was very much a live question. In this Meetup, we went to discuss from a philosophical perspective, Veblen's interpretation of the failures of the emerging university system, and its hierarchical organization, size, sprawling diversity of functions, and standardized system of instruction.
readings are linked here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12J1G2ue5YTecUuQiY1ep1jVNeZhyILJZ/view?usp=sharing
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Acquiring Character Traits -- Aristotle's Nicomachean EthicsLink visible for attendees
August 10 - We are reading NE VII.5, which is about being beastly. This chapter 5 attempts to draw a sharp boundary between being humanly bad and being humanly animalistic with respect to the sort of pleasurable things someone can pursue. A boundary on this dimension of measurement enables Aristotle troubleshoot the problem of lacking self-control. A lack of self-control about something humanly bad can be remediated. By contrast, there can be no such thing as a lack of self-control about something humanly animalistic--which is beastliness.
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So what is being beastly, according to Aristotle? I have questions about applicability. What sexual deviancies (if any) may be considered beastly? What about food? Is eating dog meat being beastly? What about eating insect larvae or insects themselves? What about the extremes of being a vegan or a cannibal?
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My summary of chapter 4 can be found here to help you catch up to us. https://mega.nz/file/fih1SKKJ#d64NUslCeZQRRmlNvnWjBGuCsdWXhi2eSVkxWpqq4PA Bring your own questions about the text if you are interested in joining this Sunday's meeting.
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We are live-reading and discussing Aristotle's ~Nicomachean Ethics~, book VII, which is about troubleshooting the virtues.
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The prerequisite to this book is our answering for ourselves these questions from the prior books, to which we will briefly review:
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1. What is a virtue of character {ēthikē aretē}?
2. How does one come to acquire it? (E.g. [Aristotle’s], ambition, bravery, gentlemanliness, generosity, candor, …)
3. From a first-person perspective in being virtuous, how does one feel and what does one see (differently, discursively) in a given situation of everyday living?
4. From a third-person perspective, how is the virtuous person (of a specific virtue) to be characterized?
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The project's cloud drive is here, at which you'll find the reading texts, notes, and slideshows. - Medieval Civilization: Millennia in Microcosm Week 155Link visible for attendees
Join us for a deep dive into Kenneth Smith’s rich examination of sin, ego, and the paradoxes of spiritual growth. In this discussion, we’ll explore how sin—etymologically rooted in separation—is not simply wrongdoing, but a deeper failure to remain attuned to what is spiritually essential. Smith contrasts the unifying nature of spirit with the fragmenting edge of ego, arguing that misalignment with our higher faculties leads to inner division and blindness. Drawing from Aristotle and Kierkegaard, he unfolds a profound paradox: that self-denial—not rejection of desire, but proper integration—leads not to deprivation, but to a fuller, more abundant life. Through this lens, we’ll confront the clash between esthetic and spiritual modes of living, and examine what it truly means to “choose the better part.” This session invites reflection on the structure of the soul, the sharpening of intelligence, and the ethics of spiritual clarity.
C: Selfless Love and The Encompassing https://kennethsmithphilosophy.com/end07.php - Aristotle's On Interpretation - Live-Reading--European StyleLink visible for attendees
August 12 - We are reading chapter 14, the last of *On Interpretation*. It is roughly about knowing the knowable through belief. Up until now, Aristotle has been focusing on the relationship between our knowing and the things that are. Now, in the final chapter, he turns his attention toward the relationship between our knowing and the beliefs we craft so as to lasso-grasp the things that are. And the latter may involve deceit (and self-deception). The bookmark is set at Bekker line 23a27. George will start the reading at the second paragraph.
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The chapter most relevant to the current one is chapter 10. Here is my review of it. https://mega.nz/file/SzJ3gLSA#dqjbvrPZrp1m1Zo7tgHm10OgKCdfJEdPB-5VlMqf47c
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Join the meeting, keep pen and notepad at the ready, and participate.
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Organon means "instrument," as in, instrument for thought and speech. The term was given by ancient commentators to a group of Aristotle's treatises comprising his logical works.Organon
|-- Categories ---- 2023.02.28
|-- On Interpretation ---- 2023.12.12
|-- Topics
|-- On Sophistical Refutations
|-- Rhetoric*
|-- Prior Analytics
|-- Posterior Analytics(* Robin Smith, author of SEP's 2022 entry "Aristotle's Logic," argues that Rhetoric should be part of the Organon.)
Whenever we do any human thing, we can either do it well or do it poorly. With instruments, we can do things either better, faster, and more; or worse, slower, and less. That is, with instruments they either augment or diminish our doings.
Do thinking and speaking (and writing and listening) require instruments? Yes. We need physical instruments like microphones, megaphones, pens, papers, computers. But we also need mental instruments: grammar, vocabulary words, evidence-gathering techniques, big-picture integration methods, persuasion strategies. Thinking while sitting meditatively all day in a lotus position doesn't require much instrumentation of any kind, but thinking and speaking well in the sense of project planning, problem-solving, negotiating, arguing, deliberating--that is, the active doings in the world (whether romantic, social, commercial, or political)--do require well-honed mental instruments. That's the Organon in a nutshell.
Are you an up-and-coming human being, a doer, go-getter, achiever, or at least you're choosing to become one? You need to wield the Organon.
Join us.
- Acquiring Character Traits -- Aristotle's Nicomachean EthicsLink visible for attendees
We are live-reading and discussing Aristotle's ~Nicomachean Ethics~, book VII, which is about troubleshooting the virtues.
.
The prerequisite to this book is our answering for ourselves these questions from the prior books, to which we will briefly review:
.
1. What is a virtue of character {ēthikē aretē}?
2. How does one come to acquire it? (E.g. [Aristotle’s], ambition, bravery, gentlemanliness, generosity, candor, …)
3. From a first-person perspective in being virtuous, how does one feel and what does one see (differently, discursively) in a given situation of everyday living?
4. From a third-person perspective, how is the virtuous person (of a specific virtue) to be characterized?
.
.
The project's cloud drive is here, at which you'll find the reading texts, notes, and slideshows.
